


No One's Victim

by skybluecassowary



Category: Final Fantasy XII
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-08
Updated: 2011-05-08
Packaged: 2017-10-19 03:27:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,290
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/196366
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skybluecassowary/pseuds/skybluecassowary
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It is said that the Esper Zalera captured a Shamaness to use as a shield against the attacks of the gods. She has a rather different point of view on the subject.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No One's Victim

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Person](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Person/gifts).



Listen, I’ll tell you a secret- he never forced me to do anything. I was never his prisoner, never his captive. What I do now is of my own free will, and of my own choosing. I am not a victim of this- no more than any other creature in this world is a victim, at least. We are all their victims, and in their haste to deny their responsibility in our making and in our falling, they created stories of us which the Humes tell each other of how the world fell into disrepair and sorrow because of us, and that were it not because of us they would be free of all trouble and strife and not need to fear death’s embrace and they would live eternally, perfect and immortal.  


Fools. Humes were dying long before we ever even thought of falling, have continued to die since we were bound, and will keep on dying so long as there are Humes to die. Our disobedience being the cause of this is merely an excuse for the gods own failure to understand just how much energy and attention it takes to create a world, and how much more it takes to maintain it and so decided to give each life a limit so that the energy of one life would nourish another. This is inefficient, and yet it was what they chose, and we are the ones who take the blame. They cursed us, the Humes, for something that was out of our control and had nothing to do with us.  


They cursed him. They screamed and screamed and swore and raged and yelled and there’s only so much that a person can take of that sort of treatment when one is just doing the job that was set for one. Only so much that you can take before things start to wear on you and every day looks just a little darker and more troublesome, and your duty becomes more and more of a burden. But the dead kept dying, and I had to keep bringing them to him, and they kept cursing him, and that kept warping him, and still they came without cease until it became too much for him and it finally broke him and broke us both and he took me with him-  


Let me tell you again. No one wants to die, and no one wants to face judgment after death. When Humes died, and they came before him, they were terrified. There he was, the final reality, the ultimate ending, and there was nothing for them to do but rage against the heavens and curse him to his face out of that fear. Heaven is far away, and the gods do not care about the curses of mortals, but Zalera was always there, and there was no escape for him from their curses, and no rest. It wearied him to carry out his duties with no reward and no comfort, and it enraged him to be insulted and made a fool of by those who refused to accept that whatever punishment came to them was of their own making, and not something that he came up with to torment them. Their hells were their own, no matter how much they wished it otherwise. Yet he still would not turn from his appointed duty, no matter how much it pained him to be wronged by them, no matter how much their cries and curses warped him.  


I was not so kind, not so duty-bound. I went to Shemhazai, the Whisperer, and I whispered my secrets and his to her. She smiled at me, and whispered back, and I knew what I had to do. The gods had given us love to keep us in line and obedient to their desires, and I would use love to turn him against them. I begged, I pleaded, I whispered all the love words that I’d heard the dying breathe before I brought them to him. I told him of the others who had been made and then cast aside by the gods- of Cuchullain who was created beautiful and told to destroy and transmute all the filth in the world and when he was ruined by that work with the task undone, he was cast out; of Chaos, whom he was intimately familiar with, who passed through the gates backward and forward, never allowed to stop no matter how much he desired it; of Zodiark who had been created too strong and was never to be allowed his full power. I told him of all the others who had been placed into a position which bound them too tightly and of how they had made their way out of that position and were just waiting for the word to be said and how we could join them. I told him of the glory of Ultima, and how she would lead us to a place where we could stand on our own, without the punishments of the gods or the curses of Humes.  


I told him every lie I could think of to get him to break out of his shell. It only worked because he was already too far gone for me to call him back. He had already been driven mad by their treatment of him, and he threw himself into the plans of the others with a fervor which frightened me. What frightened me even more was that he still loved me, even though I had lead the deceased Humes to him to be judged, and had encouraged him to fall in the hopes of freeing him. And yet he still loved me, and would not let me go from his side even when I needed to carry out my duties for fear of suspicion falling on us from the gods noticing that the dead were not coming as was proper. I lied in that as well, and still he believed me, and would reluctantly let me go to bring him more souls to further cement his insanity. I told him I loved him and he believed me.  


Finally, it was too much to hide, and they found us- or were they told about us? Even now we don’t know, but find us they did, and they used that finding against us. They struck us down and bound us and weakened us to the point where we have to come when we are called. I was bound with him, for the crime of leading an Esper into the shadows where he had already stepped through their folly. They would have killed me, except he shielded me with himself and would not release me from his grip for fear that I’d be taken from him. He protected me even though I brought him to this junction, and he continues to protect me now.  


I’ll tell you another secret, Hume child. The bonds that hold him to your obedience are not the bonds that hold me- he holds me, but you do not. At any time I could try to free myself, but what would it profit me? I am a Shamaness, my duty is to bring the dead to him at the gates, and if he is not there, then what is the use of gathering them? It was my love for him that made him like this, and it is for love of him that I stay. I am not bound, I am not a victim. I am in love, and I shall remain so until this world ends and we are once again freed, and shall continue even after that, in love, with him. I am no one’s prisoner save my own heart’s.


End file.
